On January 23rd (Monday), Codemasters announced that their MMORPG, RF Online was entering the first phase of their beta testing. Spaces for players were limited, but they did expect pre-order customers to join within 2-3 weeks. here.

On January 24th, the highly anticipated MMORPG, Age of Conan, passed one of the milestones that MMORPGs must pass in their creation. They have opened a new community portal. The CEO of Funcome had this to say: “Building up a strong community and establishing good relationships with players is a key component of developing a successful massively multiplayer game and this new portal will play a key role in the months ahead”. click here.

On January 27th (Friday), Final Fantasy XI announced a simultaneous launch for the upcoming FFXI expansion, Treasures of Aht Urhgan, and for their Xbox 360 version as well. The date in question for North America? April 18th.click here.

From the Library

Back in August of 2005, lots of people were wondering just what was going on behind closed doors at Mythic Entertainment. After all, they had just closed the doors on one of their major projects that had been receiving quite a bit of hype, Imperator. They had also announced that they would be making a new MMORPG which was dedicated to the Warhammer franchise.

At that time, our own Dana Massey put a few questions to Internet Relations Manager Sanya Thomas about the company’s goings on. Now that the WAR project is under way, and Mythic’s path has become more clear to the rest of us, I thought it might be fun to go back and have a look at what Sanya told Dana. Below, find a sample of their conversation.

MMORPG.com: Many of the game concepts in Imperator were well received, but in many corners, the setting was considered a bit odd. If Imperator ever does return, will it be even remotely close to the same game? Sanya Thomas: We evolve from patch to patch, man. I'm not thinking much past the launch of Darkness Rising, myself. There's no way I can even guess what a retuned Imperator would look like. Sorry.

MMORPG.com: The release says no layoffs. These people working on it need to go somewhere. Does this mean that production on Warhammer is going well and we will perhaps see it sooner than expected? Sanya Thomas: There were only a tiny number of people on Warhammer for the design phase. We were originally going to try and hire an entire new team for the implementation phase; now, we don't have to.

The interview goes on to hint that there may be a third Mythic game in the works for the future.

Here’s a word we’ve been seeing a lot of these days on our boards. Carebear. From what I can tell, Carebear is being used to describe a person who does not enjoy the concept of open PvP, and would prefer to play a game which had a heavy focus on PvE.

These days, it really does seem like there are two different camps in terms of MMORPGs, those who PvP and those who don’t. With a few of the threads that have been posted on the site recently, one side saying something about the other side that isn’t all together kind.

Personally, I think that the solution to bringing these two sides together lies in an intelligent game design that will allow PvPers to have their fun, while keeping so-called “carebears” happy. The problem, I think, are the extremes on both sides. There are some players who won’t be happy with anything but the total lack of PvP in a game, and there are those who won’t be happy unless the game has totally open, free-form PvP. There must be a solution somewhere in the middle, and so… I am challenging you, the MMORPG.com community, to design a fresh PvP system that would work for everyone but the most extreme of either side. I’ve already read lots of great ideas on our forums, but if we all get together, let’s see what we can come up with.

Come on over and contribute to a new discussion on PvP, maybe even contribute a design idea or two. Click here.

Game of the Week

This Week’s Game of the Week is Lord of the Rings Online. Have you ever wanted to become a character from Middle Earth? If the answer is yes, then Turbine is providing you the means to do it. Tolkien’s rich backdrop should provide MMORPG players with a game that is extremely rich in story and background.

So far, this game has garnered a 7.1 Hype Rating from our readership. To dredge up an annoying cliché… Will there be one game to rule them all? We’ll find out as Lord of the Rings Online continues to grow and develop.

On Saturday, January 28th, Dana Massey and Jon Wood debated the merits of games like Turbine’s Lord of the Rings Online, which arebased on Intellectual Properties.